Human rights complainant has change of heart; target Levant doesn't buy it

The protagonist in the protracted campaign by former Western Standard magazine publisher Ezra Levant against the Alberta (and other) human rights commissions has apparently reversed his field.

According to a story from the CanWest news service, Imam Syed Soharwardy is opening a Freedom of Speech Centre in Calgary to openly discuss cultural issues of the day.Soharwardy says he has had a change of heart.

"My view of the human rights commission has changed almost 180 degrees," he told Canwest News Service. "Especially about this Section 13, the freedom of speech....

"I wish we could have sat down at that time and talked it out rather than me going to a human rights complaint and Mr. Levant writing about me in the media and on the website," Soharwardy says. "I think it would have helped us both."

Soharwardy, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada launched a complaint against Levant in February 2006 for publishing the so-called "Danish cartoons" that lampooned the prophet Muhammad. Soharwardy claimed that their publication was a form of hate speech.

Levant fought back, hard, and has missed no opportunity since to slam human rights legislation as an offence against free speech, even after the Western Standard folded its print edition and Soharwardy backed out of his complaint. Levant claimed he had spent $10,000 defending himself in the case.

Levant doesn't buy Soharwardy's conversion.But he said it's clear opinion is piling up against the commissions.

"The only people in the country who still support it are those who have a direct financial stake in it," he said.

Related posts:

• Alberta discrimination case dismissed against former Western Standard publisher
• Levant says he'll sue to recover costs from the man who dropped human rights charges
• Ezra Levant gets his day in what he calls a "kangaroo court"
• Complaint against Western Standard stalled for a year, so far
• Levant appeals for help on legal fees